, or ''Detective Story'', is an action Japanese TV series starring

Yūsaku Matsuda was a Japanese actor. In Japan, he was best known for roles in action films and a variety of television series in the 1970s as well as a switch to a wider range of roles in the 1980s. His final film appearance was as the villain Sato in Ridley ...

that was originally broadcast on

Nippon TV JOAX-DTV (channel 4), branded as , is the flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned-and-operated by the which is a subsidiary of the certified broadcasting holding company , itself a listed su ...

in 27 forty-five-minute episodes from September 18, 1979 to April 1, 1980. The show had various directors including

Toru Murakawa TORU or Toru may refer to: *TORU, spacecraft system *Toru (given name), Japanese male given name *Toru, Pakistan Toru Mardan Toru is a village and union council in Mardan District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It has an altitude of 291 m (958 fe ...

, Kiyoshi Nishimura, Yukihiro Sawada and

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Plot

Shunsaku Kudō sets up office in a rundown building as a private detective after spending five years as a cop in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

where he became familiar with firearms. Kudō was originally envisioned as a standard hard-boiled type but star

looked too much like a rebel so the character ended up riding a

Vespa Vespa () is an Italian luxury brand of scooter (motorcycle), scooters and mopeds manufactured by Piaggio. The name means wasp in Italian. The Vespa has evolved from a single model motor scooter manufactured in 1946 by Piaggio & Co. S.p.A. of ...

scooter, smoking

Camel A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. C ...

cigarettes and dressing in a black or white suit and sunglasses. Also living in the building are two young girls (American actress Nancy Cheney and Kahori Takeda) who fuss over the detective.

Cast

as Shunsaku Kudo *

Mikio Narita was a Japanese actor. He was most famous for playing villains. He often worked with Kinji Fukasaku. Narita graduated from Haiyuza Theatre Company acting school and joined Daiei Film. His career as a screen actor started in 1963. His film debut ...

as Chief Detective Hattori *

Mitsuko Baisho , is a Japanese actress, whose most internationally known work has been for director Shohei Imamura, from 1979 up to the director's final film in 2010. Baisho has also appeared in films of Akira Kurosawa. She won awards for best actress at the 10 ...

as Masako * Michihiro Yamanishi as Detective Matsumoto * Nancy Cheney as Nancy * Kahori Takeda as Kahori * Tetsuo Nose as Tattoo Guy * Hiroshi Shimizu as Iizuka * Osamu Shigematsu *

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Ryoko Watanabe is a Japanese 1980s pink film actress and model who is best known for her Nikkatsu Roman Porno films in the period 1982–1985. Career Watanabe came under exclusive contract with Nikkatsu and made her studio debut as the lead role in an Atsushi F ...

Hiromi Hirata is a Japanese voice actress represented by I'm Enterprise. She is best known for her role as Makoto Kikuchi in '' The Idolmaster'' game series. She was featured as a guest of honor at Anime Expo 2004. In video games, she voices Mao in ''Disgae ...

Reception

''Tantei Monogatari'' with its easy-going humorous style earned high ratings while on the air and later acquired a cult following.

published a book about the show titled ''Yomigaere! Tantei Monogatari'' (Come Back! Detective Story) in 1994 and

Toei Video () (also styled TOEI) is a Japanese film, television production, and distribution and video game developer and publishing company. Based in Tokyo, Toei owns and operates thirty-four movie theaters across Japan (all but two of them operated by ...

later released the whole series. Toei also released the entire series as a boxed set of

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

discs in 2015.

References

External links

{{IMDb title, 0361245 Japanese action television series Japanese drama television series Nippon TV dramas Detective television series 1979 Japanese television series debuts 1980 Japanese television series endings Japanese detective television drama series